August 2008 - Posts

• MECA Rocks Sound Quality @ Elite Summer Nationals

  Elite Summer Nationals exploded at the Spartanburg Expo Center on Saturday, August 9th, with over 200 show vehicles and a huge crowd over 5000 for the 1 day event.  Drifting, a car/truck show with 150 entrants, IASCA sound-off contests, and MECA's SPL and SQL competitions were featured attractions. The MECA Sound Quality League entertained 27 Competitors from 9 states, including 2007 Culbertson Cup winner/aka SQL Modex+ World Champ, David Timmerman from North Carolina.  Team Zapco was the prevalent factory team, with teams from Audison, Hertz, JBL, Memphis, Powermaster, and Xstatic represented by their best Competitors. Team Elite, as host team, presented many SQL Competitors that earned top spots in their classes.  Team SoundDomain was there with all five Team SoundDomain members there and three of us competing. Rick Washabaugh from Frankfort, KY won the Best of Best of Show big trophy.  He had the 2nd highest SPL score of the event in MX1 with 153.9 dB at the headrest for 1st place in SPL, the Drive-by SPL Parade Best of Show for highest score with 128.0 dB, 2nd place in SQL Install, and 1st place in Sound Quality with a score of 79.6 points in the Extreme class. With 27 Competitors in the SQL contests, the 3 MECA Judges were up to their ears, literally, in great sounding car audio systems.  Matt Roberts from Fountain Inn, SC won the SQL Best of Show award with the highest averaged score of 85 points in Modex+, one of MECA's toughest SQL classes.  David Timmerman placed 2nd in the class with 84.5 points.   Matt has been working on the Install in his classic Chevy pick-up, and scored an astounding 92 points, with accolades from the SQL Head Judge, Vinny Taylor. Elite Audio's van out-fitted with Memphis gear won the SPL Best of Show with 155.8 dB at the headrest in M5.  James Toombs from Virginia had the high Amateur Street score with 140.8 dB at the headrest in AS1.  Team Tremorz Kurt Wallick (NC) scored 148.6 dB fo r first in Radical X1, winning over SQL Competitor Ben Vollmer from GA. Speaking of Ben Vollmer:  his Car Audio Nationals (CAN) sound quality contest was held at ESN using MECA score sheets.  Steven Head from Florida won the 2-seat contest and Matt Roberts won the single-seat contest.  Each won $250 from CAN for their efforts.  Daryl Trammell (NC) represented Team JBL in a close race in 2-seat judging, with his tricked out D.A.R.E. car with mucho modifications and a rockin' sound system. Show Promoter Joe Zelano, owner of Elite Audio, was exhausted but exuberant after the show.  He summed it up:  "Elite Summer Nationals; this year has been the best year yet!  We have really put a mark on the car audio competition scene, and it's starting to feel like the mid 90's again, when we had 30 cars per class.  Every year our competitor base has increased.  We have really concentrated on educating the public about good sound.  Having shows like this are great ways for consumers to get involved."   View the results at www.mecacaraudio.com or www.elitesummernationals.com with more event pictures coming soon.           Posted Aug 30 2008, 12:00 AM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: MECA, Elite Summer Nationals

• Road to Tulsa - Day 3

  So today started again bright and early. I went to sleep early on Day 2 and I think Rick and Andy crawled back into the room around 3 am from tuning their cars. We left the hotel again and headed over to Mobile SoundStage Engineering for the second day of Mark Eldridge's Sound Quality training. Yesterday's training was done in the studio next to Mark's shop. Today's training was done in the shop, which is better setup for working on cars. One of the coolest things in the shop is Mark's trophy presentation. There are a TON of trophies spanning back through the past 10-15 years.   Today was an awesome day with it being spent almost 75% of the time being spent in cars and the remaining 25% spent on one of the most important things you can do, which is creating proper gain structures. After talking about gain structures and showing us how to use an O-Scope to properly set our gains on all of the components in signal path, which for me was personally VERY valuable. The next step was working on speaker placement. With some mono pink noise and some fabricated enclosures, we sat in Joe's Mustang and played with speaker placement. It was interesting to see how moving speakers by even 1/4" would change the imaging dramatically. Here is Andy and Rick sitting in the car with the top down moving speaker pods around to get the best sound. I NEVER would have thought that pink noise could have ever been that useful of a tool with out a RTA!   We all also got a chance to listen to Mark's Car. Since Joe and I will NOT be judging the Expert Class, I spent some great time inside the car. Here is Joe's reaction once he got out.   We also have some awesome videos of us getting in and out of the doors on the car, which pose challenges for some of us more full figured folks. Once inside the car, it is VERY comfortable in there. Below is a picture of Andy and Rick "closing their eyes to concentrate" in the car. We then stopped by CarToys to meet the team there and get ready for tomorrow. Now we need a car wash and a quick trip to Kinko's is in order. :-)  Posted Aug 29 2008, 10:54 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: CarToys, Mark Eldridge

• Tim Brown - IASCA Sound Quality Judge @ CAN Finals

  Name: Tim Brown Bio: Born in March of 1977 in a little town in Ohio. Moved to Georgia before I was a year old. I was introduced to sound by a Deacon at my church and his band.  I began to build and compete about 11 years ago. I have been building my own stereo systems since I was old enough to have a car to put one in. I have been installing for local people and friends for about 7 years now. I started out competing in SPL and decided to try my hand in SQ about 4 years ago. My wife, Alison, and I became certified judges for IASCA 2 years ago and have been promoting shows in our area every since. I love to see what everyone else has done with their sound systems and help those who need a little advice or even a lot for that matter. A lot of the way I am is due to the teaching of a great friend, Greg Welch. (R.I.P) I look forward to seeing and hearing all of the unique systems that I will judge in the future. How long have you been involved with Audio? Since 1993. Competing since 1995. Did you ever compete? If so, in what organization and What / When was your first completion? I still compete when I am not judging. I currently only compete in IASCA. I have competed in Slap Show SPL, MECA SQ and Install, and USACi SQ. My First show was in 1993. What CD's are in your CD players right now? IASCA SQ competition disc, Nickelback, CREED, Poison, Guns ‘n Roses, Booty Hits, etc. If you were on a island with one Artist's music, who would that artist be? Phantom of the Oprea. What is your favorite genre of music? For just relaxing in the car, classical or symphony. 80’s and early 90’s alternative and anything  with a beat I can crank on and get people askin’ “what’s in there”! What is the ONE car you wish you could listen to? Mark Eldridge’s 4-runner. What is one of the best live music shows you have seen? Why? Bone Thicket a local band in South Carolina. Because I really enjoy small local bands. I feel it gives me a chance to really experience music. Posted Aug 29 2008, 05:12 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Judges, IASCA, Tim Brown

• Alison Brown - IASCA Install Judge @ CAN Finals

  Name: Alison Brown Bio: Born in November of 1978 in West Palm Beach, Fl. Moved to Georgia when I was 18. I was introduced to sound by my husband, Tim, 7 years ago.  I began to build and compete 7 years ago. I have to admit, when Tim and I first started our relationship, I told him that I hated pulling up to a street light next to someone who had their stereo loud and I could feel it in my own car. After a few months of going to shows with Tim, I began to see the behind the scenes of the competition world and began to love it. Tim will tell you, he thinks I am more into it than he is now. I started out helping Tim build our SPL rig in 2001. After we took 1st place at the 2003 SLAP finals and the record for the class, we began to switch our interest to the world of SQ. We are still competing in SQ now, however in 2007 we became certified judges for IASCA and started promoting shows of our own. We truly enjoy putting on shows and helping others with their cars. It is not, by far a money making business, but the smiles and thank you’s  make show promoting well worth the lack of money.  Tim and I are fun loving and big hearted people. We love to see others succeed in their chosen hobbies. I truly look forward to many more years of show promotions and judging. I look forward to all of the people I will meet and all of the AWESOME rides I will get to see. How long have you been involved with Audio? Since 2001. Did you ever compete? If so, in what organization and What / When was your first completion? I still compete when I am not judging. I currently only compete in IASCA. I have competed in Slap Show SPL, MECA SQ and Install, and USACi SQ. My First show was  Spartanburg, SC in 2001. That is where I saw the Hearse for the very first time. WOW!! What CD's are in your CD players right now? IASCA SQ competition disc, Nickelback, CREED, Poison, Guns ‘n Roses, Booty Hits, etc. If you were on a island with one Artist's music, who would that artist be? Skid Row. I love their song “18 and life”. That is a close run with Poison’s “Something to believe in” What is your favorite genre of music? 80’s alternative, Poison, Skid Row, Guns ‘n Roses, but I also love to ground pound some too. So anything with a good bas beat is fine with me too. As long as it isn’t too nasty. What is the ONE car you wish you could listen to? The Mercedes that Gary Biggs built in 2006. What is one of the best live music shows you have seen? Why?  I haven’t been to many but I have to say the Lynard Skynard show Tim and I went to in 2001 at the Hi Fi Buys Amptheater in Atlanta. Posted Aug 29 2008, 05:09 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Judges, IASCA, Alison Brown

• Shazad Rahaman - IASCA Sound Quality Judge @ CAN Finals

  Name: Shazad Rahaman Bio: 4th July 1970 How long have you been involved with Audio? About 28 years started when I was 10 and have been involved in school choirs and played different instruments in school bands as well as installing car audio and video systems and home theatre Did you ever compete? If so, in what organization and What / When was your first completion? Started competing in local car audio competitions  in 1988 Competed in both sq and IdBl when IASCA was introduced to my country in 1997 Was tricked into becoming a judge by Terry Floyd in 2004 and was invited to judge at world finals later that year and have been judging sq at IASCA SBN and World Finals ever since What CD's are in your CD players right now? The Police Greatest Hits Sade Live on DVD Toto Live DVD Queensryche Live DVD Sylver  Chances Ub40 Greatest Hits If you were on a island with one Artist's music, who would that artist be? The Beatles What is your favorite genre of music? Coming from a multicultural country I am exposed to a very wide genre of music internationally and it’s hard to choose. What is the ONE car you wish you could listen to? Fortunately for me I have had the opportunity to listen to many great vehicles by most of the top guys in the industry however the one the one that peaked my interest in sound q and would have liked to listen to would be Richard Clark’s Buick Grand National What is one of the best live music shows you have seen? Why? Local live concert in my country featuring some of the best local pop/rock bands Was offered to sit behind the mixing board with the sound engineer and basically got the best sounding seat in the house! Posted Aug 29 2008, 05:06 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Judges, IASCA, Shazad Rahaman

• Road To Tulsa - Day 2

  So today started bright and early. We left the the hotel after a few hours sleep and headed over to Mobile SoundStage Engineering for the first day of Mark's Sound Quality training. Upon entering the room, we found some great gear setup to use during the class.  Some vintage JBL 15 inch pro woofers, and Mark's old Altec 802d compression drivers on some nice JBL horns, all in 5 cubic foot vented enclosures, with lots of power.  They got really loud, and sounded very nice. Listenign to music on them was awesome. Mark also had some Genelec monitors with a JL Audio Fathom 12-inch sub, and some other speakers, we had a good selection to listen to, and demonstrate lots of different applications and acoustical issues. One of the coolest exercises of the day involved dual equalizers. Mark shut off all of the speakers but one and took one band on the equalizer and moved it. We then had to take the other equalizer and make the opposite adjustment to make it sound right. Here is a picture of Andy making some equalizer adjustments. We spent some time talking in detail about reflections. Rick Sellers spent some in the chair with Mark showing us how foam can and does change the sound both for the good and the bad. ";" mce_src="http://caraudionationals.com/blogs/can/WindowsLiveWriter/RoadToTulsaDay2_D7CC/video29ecd8b02096.jpg" galleryimg="no"> Late in the day, Fred Lynch from ARC Audio stopped by and said Hi to all of us in the class. He also was nice enough to drop off a couple of copies of the new Arc Audio CD, which was published by TelArc. It is full of music from Team ARC Audio's members and is one I look forward to spending some quality time with soon. We also learned that the direction that the TomTom brought us in the shortest route. While not the fastest route, it was the most direct. So my apologies to Andy and TomTom. And taking two competition cars out here when you are judging, is probably one of the longest part of the trip. Andy wouldn't let me listen to the radio incase I judged his class. So we loaded up my iPod and we listened to Dave Ramsey podcasts for several hours of talk radio. I headed to bed early with Andy and Rick tuning their cars. Tomorrow should be awesome with us being able to spend some time in our cars. Posted Aug 29 2008, 03:21 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: CarToys, Mark Eldridge

• Road To Tulsa - Day 1

  Today started early with my son deciding to wake up at 4:00 am.  After packing some of my favorite CD's and heading to the airport, the trip started. My plans were to fly from Atlanta to Memphis, TN, where I would meet up with Andy Jones and complete the rest of the trip by car. So in less than an hour I flew from Atlanta to Memphis where Andy picked me up and we headed to Neely's BBQ and ate some awesome Barbeque.   After stuffing ourselves at Neely's, we headed over to Memphis Car Audio in downtown Memphis. Memphis is one of the oldest brand in car audio that I can think of. They have a long series of first's including the First 4 Track Player, 8 Track Player, and many many more. Amiee and Jimmy set us up on an awesome tour of the facility and a peek at some of their new products and existing products.  Memphis is one brand under the Arthur Fulmer Companies, with the other one being  the Fulmer Motorcycle Helmet Company.   The first place that they took Andy and I to, was the board room with a collection of current Memphis products. One of the cool thing was their new "Thin" Subwoofer that should be hitting the shelves soon. In addition, they had their new component setup and two of their very sexy amplifiers.   Here are some pictures of the cut away version of their new sub you will be seeing soon. I can't wait to hear it! Here is a pretty cool helmet only available to Memphis Car Audio Dealers. We were told last years was based upon the Memphis Sponsored Drift car and was VERY popular with the dealers.   They also have a line of interconnects and wiring, which was VERY cool. I didn't even know that they made them. Andy, being older than me, remember the old Fultron wiring being Orange and it still is!   We also got to see the replacement cone for the Memphis MoJo subwoofer. Way cool the way the piece just snaps back into the rest of the assembly.   We finally got into the hotel around 2:30 am. We could have gotten here about an hour soon if the cheap GPS that Andy brought with him would have worked a little better. It redirected us to non toll roads, which added an hour to the trip. So my advice would be NEVER get a TomTom One. My Windows Live Search on my BlackJack II had the right route, but Andy isn't good at taking directions. :-) Bad TomTom. So after being up for 23 hours, we are headed to bed. Will have more from Mark's Sound Quality seminar tomorrow! Posted Aug 28 2008, 03:46 AM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Car Audio, CarToys, Mark Eldridge, Memphis Car Audio

• The Road to Tulsa

  So Four of us from Team SoundDomain are headed out to one of the largest Car Audio shows this year. (As Murph posted here yesterday!) Since the drive to Tulsa is long and boring from here, we are going to be giving you daily updates from the road. I won't be competing in the show, but will be there to judge the USACi portion of the show on Saturday. Wednesday is the first day of the journey for us and we have some exciting things lined up. Look for some posts on the shops we pass along the way as well much more. We will be meeting up in Memphis to start our caravan and the fine folks at Memphis Car Audio have agreed to host us there for a visit to their offices and meet with some of their staff.  So while doing a road trip may be boring, we will  do our best to only bring you the highlights. :) See you in Tulsa! Posted Aug 27 2008, 05:34 AM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Car Audio, CarToys

• Car Audio Nationals (CAN) is Proud to Announce the 2008 CAN Finals – Sponsored by ARC Audio

  Car Audio Nationals is pleased to announce that its final event of the season, a culmination of prestigious car audio sound quality competition prize money shows, will take place at the Georgia International Convention Center on September 20-21, 2008. CAN is the ONLY car audio sound quality sanctioning organization that awards its winners with a cash-prize pay-out, and we will be doing it once again in Atlanta, Georgia the third weekend of September. We have secured the services of several world-class sound quality judges, industry legends, and former world champions to determine “the best of the best” in the CAN competition. Our judging staff includes Richard Clark, Richard Inferrera, Micah Sheveloff, Dave MacKinnon, Bob Johann, and many more (full judges biographies are available on www.caraudionationals.com; you can also find biographies of pre-registered competitors there as well).  The CAN Finals will be co-located with the Motorsports Nationals car show, which features an array of activities, live music, models, a terrific car show, and more. In addition to the ONLY Sound Quality Series with a cash prize with events sanctioned by IASCA, MECA and USACi, we are pleased to announce that the final Car Audio Nationals Event in 2008 will include an IASCA Territorial Key Event, and the MECA Georgia State Finals, with a CASH purse in Sound Quality and Sound Pressure Level (SPL) classes. Additionally, our SPL competition will be an IASCA World Record Event, with IASCA’s Executive Director Moe Sabourin officiating. For MECA SPL, we will be setting Georgia State Records at this State Championship Event. The following is our schedule of events:     Saturday – September 20th Sunday – September 21st 8:00 AM – Move in. Registration Begins for Car Audio Nationals, IASCA & MECA 8:00 AM – Move in. 9:00 AM – MECA Sound Quality and SPL Judging. 9:00 AM – IASCA Sound Quality and IdBL Judging. 9:00 AM – IASCA Sound Quality and IdbL Judging. 5:00 PM – IASCA Trophies. 10:00 AM – Car Audio Nationals Sound Quality Judging.   5:00 PM – MECA Trophies.   7:00 PM – Car Audio Nationals Trophies.     We have secured interior spaces for Sound Quality Competitors and those spaces will be available to pre-registered participants first and only available to on-site registrations on a space available basis. You can pre-register at www.caraudionationals.com. We will be having a full schedule of events and look forward to seeing you there! Terry Floyd – SoundOff Technologies David Hogan – MECA Event Coordinator Ben Vollmer – Car Audio Nationals Posted Aug 24 2008, 06:26 PM by BenVollmer with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Dave MacKinnon, Richard Inferrera, Micah Sheveloff, Bob Johann, Motorsports Nationals, Richard Clark

• I Want That: Azentek SmartMirror

  I recently ran across this and fell in love. I recently ran across this video of the Azentek SmartMirror.  It is a mirror with with a 4" screen built into it with integrated Navigation and Bluetooth. It is running navigation from Navigon. It also includes two additional video inputs. I have yet to find anybody selling it, but was supposed to be on sale the 1st of August for about $800.00.   What do you think? Posted Aug 21 2008, 08:43 AM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Azentek

• Field Trip: Chesky Records HQ

  After spending a couple of days last week in Boston, this week I was once again in the North East. My day job called me there to conduct some training. While in New York City, I was able to sneak away to the Headquarters of Chesky Records.  WOW. Was able to spend some time with Lisa, who has been invaluable in working with Car Audio Nationals on our CD. She has also been awesome working on several other small projects that may bare fruit soon I hope. While offices are offices, Lisa was able to sneak me into the studio that they have on premises. While in there I got to meet Nick, the recording engineer. He was busy creating the high definition tracks for the HDTracks.com website.  While in the studio, Lisa and Nick sat me down on the listening sofa. WOW! WOW! WOW! Hearing the music in the studio was phenomenal. They had obviously spent much time and energy in getting the speaker placement and speakers setup just right. I was listening to  XXXX and was blown away. NEVER have I heard anything that imaged like that. Don't know if it was the fact that the room was designed by the guys who record the music or the gear in the room. (I would blame the former.... :-) The center was dead on, the tonality was awesome and the imaging and emotional involvement was all there.  I kept looking for a center channel that I knew didn't exist, but my brain could not fathom that strong of a center with no speakers there. If this was being scored at a car audio competition, it would have been a 20/20 on the score sheet in every category. In talking to many SQ Competitors, the one complaint that they often have is that mid bass / sub bass is lacking from Chesky's records. With a little teasing, Nick told me that most companies exaggerate the mid bass and sub bass, where as Chesky does not. And sure enough on a system that was obviously tuned for their records, everything sounded awesome. Just enough bass and all of the highs in balance. I am positive that Nick would love to have a conversation with any of us SQ junkies about the lack of bass in his records. :-) Easily one of the most enjoyable hours I have spent anywhere. The team at Chesky was a pleasure to chat with and very informative. I left with several copies of their new CD's that will be reviewed here soon. Here is a picture of Chesky's in-house studio. (Nick is on the left and Lisa on the right, in case you couldn't figure that out. :-) ) Posted Aug 19 2008, 08:04 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Chesky

• New Vifa Drivers Launching in January

  Tymphany, the parent company of well known brands such as Peerless, Vifa and ScanSpeak, is developing an entirely new range of VIFA drivers. Prototypes of the new driver line, scheduled to launch January 2009, will be on display at Tymphany’s suite at CEDIA in September 2008. The new range will include the following: Woofers/subwoofers from 4” to 12” diameter Midrange/full range drivers from 2” to 4” diameter Tweeters from 0.75” to 1.5” diameter The woofers will feature die cast baskets with neodymium motors and will be highly customizable for OEM customers, with cone materials ranging from paper and wood fiber to aluminum and other super stiff alloys. The tweeters will have a choice of hard or soft domes, with multiple materials available. The full range drivers is aimed at compact home theater and consumer electronics applications, as well as professional applications in telecommunication devices. I am looking forward to seeing what raw drivers they will be giving us car audio folks. Posted Aug 18 2008, 08:26 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Car Audio, Tymphany

• Field Trip to Ritop School in Boston

  Last week I had to visit Boston for my day job. While paying a visit to the wonder city, I was able to sneak out for a couple of hours and chat with long time Industry Member and Car Audio Nationals Judge, Richard Inferrera at Rich's CarTunes. He founded The Ritop School in 1985, with the training facility graduating over 100 installers each year from its Watertown, MA location. I was given an awesome tour of the facility and it was very impressive. Much time was spent both in class rooms talking about theory and in some pretty impressive installation bays. If you are looking to enter the car audio field or polish your skills, take a peek at Ritop. One of my favorite items during the tour was the paint booth. In looking at hundreds of shops over the years, this is the first paint booth I have ever seen in a shop. Since they have been at it for over 20 years, it was awesome seeing some of older equipment I have a  soft spot for. There was an Older JBL Power Series Amp and a brand that I haven't seen in forever, Street Edge. They had a Audi A4 in the bay for the students to work on. I enjoyed seeing some of the custom fabrication for the head unit, which doesn't have a dash kit. The work was top notch and was something I would swipe for my A4. :-) It was very much focused on an install that your high end customer would ask for, not a hypothetical show car. The Amp was located below the rear deck and the sub is the next piece headed into the vehicle.  If you visit the Boston area, I would put Ritop on your visit list. Just getting to chat with Rich and his crew of experienced instructors was awesome. If you aren't in Boston, you can also take a peek by looking at the web cams that they have in the classroom and installation bays. Check them out here.                Posted Aug 18 2008, 08:14 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Richard Inferrera, Ritop, CarTunes

• Headed to Tulsa? Check Out Mark Eldridge's Sound Quality Seminar

  Mark Eldridge is having a two day class in Bixby, OK right before the big CarToys show. His company, Mobile Soundstage Engineering is proud to announce that it will be conducting several of our Advanced Sound Quality Seminars in the latter half of 2008. This first is going to happen Thursday and Friday the 28th and 29th right before the CarToys show on the 30th and 31st. The classes will be non-stop action both days, strictly practical application information, with only enough theory to let everyone understand why it works. I registered for it already as did Andy and Rick from Team SoundDomain. So just based upon that it should be a ton of fun.     Based upon the registration list I saw, we are going to have a lot of very experienced competitors and judges in the same room, with lots of different opinions on some of these topics.  We should have some lively and very interesting discussions to supplement the actual curriculum. Please e-mail Mark directly if you are interested in attending, so I can give you specific details on pricing, and other important information. Mark Eldridge meldridge@mblsound.com I look forward to seeing you there! Posted Aug 18 2008, 06:35 AM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: CarToys, Mark Eldridge

• Rest In Peace: Car Audio & Electronics Magazine

  I just found out that one of my favorite magazines is being laid to rest. Source Interlink, the owner of Car Audio